Short-term rentals (STRs) have been a hot political talking point in Scottsdale for years now, as Mayor David Ortega and various city councilmembers have battled onerous restrictions at the state level to better regulate “party houses” and their related nuisances with mixed results. Additionally, the cost of housing has been a massive issue across the entire Valley, as renters have dealt with massive rent increases and prospective homeowners are largely finding themselves priced out of home ownership.
But what if both issues could be alleviated at once? What if we could kill two birds with one stone. A new idea might do just that, and it seems to come from a surprising source.
Councilman Tom Durham, who notably told voters not to vote for him in this upcoming election but instead give his vote to Tammy Caputi and Mary McAllen, seems to have prompted the possibility of merging a solution for these two issues into one potentially elegant, potentially messy solution: what if we used STRs for legitimate (read: long term) housing?
On its face, it’s an intriguing concept, but certainly not as simple as it might seem at first glance.
First off, Durham’s concerns originally came from the very valid observation that many of our city’s first responders and law enforcement can’t afford to live in the city they serve, yet the potential proposal is related to efforts within the Scottsdale Housing Authority and related to affordable housing for lower-income residents, which those employees would make too much money to qualify for.
That segues to the next issues: the potential uproar over “low income housing” near Old Town. While much of that would likely be typically NIMBY-ism, it would regardless be a tough sell to push through low income housing in a city like Scottsdale, for reasons we shouldn’t need to spell out.
Lastly…how much taxpayer money would go to subsidize this? A legitimate question…after all, STR owners wouldn’t be doing this out of the kindness of their heart, obviously the financial incentives must be worth it.
Perhaps this semblance of a plan doesn’t pencil out, but it does raise a solid point: more STRs, along with being a nuisance, means less long-term housing, and if there are reasonable mechanisms to shift that balance, they should be explored.